Police arrest suspect in lottery-ticket scam; accomplices still at large

(Broward Sheriff's Office )

November 8, 2013|By Erika Pesantes, Sun Sentinel

A woman accused of duping an 83-year-old in a lottery scam remains at large, but one of her accomplices was jailed and ordered held on a $300,000 bond Friday.

Authorities say two women preyed on a shopper outside Sedano's supermarket, 10345 Pines Blvd. in Pembroke Pines. One of them told the shopper that she was an undocumented immigrant and needed help cashing a winning lottery ticket.

They enticed the elderly woman with the promise of a $30,000 share of the winnings, then took her along on a shopping spree to prove her "good faith" before fleeing with more than $17,000 in cash, valuables and merchandise, police said.

Mauricio Quintero, 27, of Miramar, is also accused of participating in the Sept. 25 incident and was charged Thursday with larceny involving a person 65 years of age or older. He was also charged with driving with a suspended license.

During Quintero's first-appearance court hearing Friday, Assistant State Attorney Richard Sherman said that the woman accused of orchestrating the fraud, Ana Maria Cordero-Noriega, was at large after bonding out last month following an arrest for a similar scam in Margate.

According to a police report, Cordero-Noriega on Oct. 24 approached a woman outside Walmart, 5555 W. Atlantic Blvd., and asked for help cashing a $1 million lottery ticket.

Cordero-Noriega, 34, also told the woman that she was an undocumented immigrant and had an accomplice call an alleged "lottery representative," who said $20,000 would be needed to claim the winnings, police said.

When the victim could not withdraw the full $20,000 from her bank, she and Cordero-Noriega agreed to spend the night in a Coral Springs hotel with plans to return to the bank the next day, the report said.

The targeted woman became suspicious and confronted Cordero-Noriega, who fled and was arrested at a fast-food restaurant next to the hotel. Cordero-Noriega gave police a fake name — Ana Marie Moreno-Rivadeneyra — but a fingerprint scan yielded her real name, police said. She was arrested Oct. 25 and posted a $10,100 bond the next day, jail records show.

During Quintero's court hearing, Broward County Judge John "Jay" Hurley said Quintero helped Cordero-Noriega post her bond. It appears she was later linked to the Pembroke Pines case.

In that earlier case, Cordero-Noriega scammed the elderly woman into applying for a bank loan and buying merchandise at Walmart, Macy's, Best Buy, Radio Shack and JCPenney, according to an arrest affidavit.

Quintero joined them at some point during the shopping spree; after buying more than $6,000 worth of merchandise, including flat screen TVs, smartphones and designer watches, he took the purchases and left the victim with Cordero-Noriega and another accomplice, the affidavit said. That accomplice has not yet been identified.

The victim was later abandoned outside the supermarket where she was first targeted, authorities said.